men struggling to force their way over that impediment. On each
side of the highway again, where the ground rises into little
eminences, redoubts and batteries were erected, so as to command
the whole with a heavy flanking fire; while every house and hovel
lying at all within the line of expected operations was
loop-holed, and otherwise put in a posture of defence. But upon
the fortification of the church a more than ordinary degree of
care seemed to have been bestowed. As it stood upon a little
eminence in the middle of the hamlet, it was no hard matter to
convert it into a tolerably regular fortress, which might serve
the double purpose of a magazine for warlike stores and a post of
defence against the enemy. With this view the churchyard was
surrounded by a row of stout palings, called in military
phraseology stockades, from certain openings in which the muzzles
of half a dozen pieces of light artillery protruded. The walls
of the edifice itself were, moreover, strengthened by an
embankment of earth to the height of perhaps four or five feet
from the ground, above which narrow openings were made, in order
to give to its garrison an opportunity of levelling their
muskets; while on the top of the tower a small howitzer was
mounted, from which either shot or shell could be thrown with
effect into any of the lanes or passes near. It is probably
needless to add that the interior arrangements of this house of
God had undergone a change as striking as that which affected its
exterior. Barrels of gunpowder, with piles of balls of all sizes
and dimensions, now occupied the spaces where worshippers had
often crowded; and the very altar was heaped up with spunges,
wadding, and other implements necessary in case of an attack.

I have been thus minute in my description of Anglet, because what